Some of you may have used or even still have an excel spreadsheet which can be used to update metadata. This spreadsheet was originally provided by the former content server creator, Stellent. I am actually unaware of the name or names of the original author or authors and as such have not credited them here. Leave your name to take credit! Some people love it. Some people hate it.

Either way, it has been useful to me.

The original style sheet allowed users to specify additional custom columns named after their custom metadata. It offered two buttons. The first was “submit query’ which invoked the user defined query string located to the left of the button. The second button “update’ would cycle through each of the result records from the query and update the metadata based on the values in the spreadsheet.

I have updated the spreadsheet in two ways. I have added a login button which simply causes a prompt for user credentials. The importance of this button is the reduction in steps needed to update secured content. With the original spreadsheet the user first had to search on public content only and invoke an update which then prompted for credentials after which the user could conduct another search which would then have the credentials to access secured content. With the login button we can now skip this cycle. The second change is a new worksheet which contains configuration variables for the searches. Currently there are three configuration variables including ResultCount, SortField and SortOrder.

Additionally I often get asked how one can use this spreadsheet to update metadata only check-in’s. The trick is an additional column named createPrimaryMetaFile. This column should be set to TRUE if that record represents a metadata only check in.

This file and all updates to it are presented here as-is with no support implied or otherwise. As always, use at your own risk.

I have tried this spreadsheet with UCM 11g but I get the following error:

"Cannot Parse the SOAP Response"

Would you know what changes I should make to get it working in 11g?

Thanks in advance,
Javier

Reply

Syed

11/19/2013 06:54:00 am

While using Java updating metadata is a difficult task because it is time consuming and there are chances of errors. Good to know that it can be updated using an excel spread sheet. Thanks for sharing the complete steps for doing it.

Reply

Shovon

12/6/2013 02:42:13 am

Is the "Result Count" sets the limit how many content I can update at one time? Can I bump it up to much higher number say 1000? How many records at a time I can update using the spreadsheet? If I have a lot to update, how should I proceed?

Here is my challenge. I need to modify existing title of each content. I cannot use archiver map since the logic to change current title is sort of cumbersome. This spreadsheet would work nicely if I can find a way to update lots of content.

What would happen if I directly update the value in the "revision" table?